1783 Nova Constellatio Pattern Quint, Silver, Type Two AU53 PCGS
Secure. Breen-1102, W-1830, Unique. Some coins are so important
that they transcend all collecting boundaries and become cherished
treasures to numismatists, connoisseurs of art, and students of
history alike. The 1783 Nova Constellatio patterns are such coins.
As Q. David Bowers stated when the four-piece denominational set,
ex: John Ford was displayed at the Whitman table at the 2011 ANA
Convention:

"In my opinion -- and I have no vested interest of any
kind -- the 1783 Nova Constellatio patterns are candidates for the
very most important (and I won't even mention value) American
coins."

Heritage Auctions is pleased to offer the unique Type Two 1783
quint from the collection of Walter Perschke, the first time this
coin has been offered at public auction since its appearance in the
Garrett Collection sale 34 years ago.

As Bowers implies, the value of any Nova Constellatio pattern is
almost impossible to calculate. There are no meaningful prices
realized to go by, since none of the coins has been auctioned since
the Garrett sale. They are essentially priceless as, once the
opportunity to purchase one of them passes; no amount of money can
secure a replacement. John Ford, an expert on pre-federal American
coinage, considered his set of Nova Constellatio patterns the most
important items in his famous collection. When the previously
unknown copper "five" first surfaced in the late 1970s, it was
offered to a wealthy collector who asked Ford for advice, because
the price seemed so high. Caught in an agonizing conflict of
interest, between his desire to own the coin himself and his
obligation to give his client an honest assessment, Ford replied,
"Just buy it -- whatever it takes -- buy it!"

The Patterns Are Conceived
Gouverneur Morris, assistant superintendent of commerce for the
Confederation of American States, conceived the Nova Constellatio
patterns in 1781 as the first proposed monetary system for the
newly independent country. As Walter Breen said, it was "at once
the most ingenious and the most cumbersome coinage system ever
devised in Western Civilization." At that time, each of the 13
original Colonies acted as an independent economic entity, and
rates of exchange differed from place to place. A Spanish milled
dollar, or piece of eight, was valued at five shillings in Georgia
and at eight shillings in New York and North Carolina, for example.
To complicate matters, the only coins available to the Colonists up
until that time were a motley mix of English, Spanish, and French
issues, with an equally confusing mix of paper money issued by
various banks and government entities. This made interstate
commerce extremely complicated. The need for a standard federal
medium of exchange was obvious to everyone involved in commerce and
government.

Gouverneur Morris discovered that 1,440 was a magic number for 12
of the 13 different monetary systems in use throughout the country.
By making his basic unit, or mill, equal to 1/1,440th of a Spanish
milled dollar, Morris could express prices for any item in terms of
the monetary units currently employed by 12 of the 13 states in a
corresponding number of federal units without resorting to
fractions. Ten federal units would equal one penny in Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, 15 units would equal one penny
in Georgia, 24 units would equal one penny in New York and North
Carolina, and 32 units would equal one penny in New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Virginia. Only South
Carolina remained unreconciled, where slightly more than 3.6973
units would equal one penny. Morris decided that 48 units would
equal 13 pence in South Carolina units, close enough for his
purposes.

Accordingly, Morris decided to make his basic monetary unit
equivalent to 1/1,440th of a Spanish milled dollar. Of course, even
if the coin were made of base metal, a coin that contained only
that tiny intrinsic value would be too small for practical use, so
Morris kept the unit as an abstract concept. The smallest coin
actually envisioned in his system was a copper five-unit piece;
other denominations included an eight-unit copper coin, a 100-unit
silver piece, known as the cent or bit, a 500-unit silver quint, a
1,000-unit silver mark, and, eventually, a 10,000-unit gold
piece.

Robert Morris and the Mint Project
The Revolutionary War was not officially over until 1783, and the
demands of conducting the conflict and other cares prevented the
government from taking much action on the monetary system before
that time, although a committee on matters pertaining to the
Treasury had recommended the establishment of a mint as early as
February 20, 1777. The man most involved with pursuing this project
was Robert Morris, superintendent for finance for the
Confederation, and Gouverneur Morris' boss (the two men were
unrelated). On July 9, 1781, Morris received a letter from John
Bradford of Boston, recommending an experienced metallurgist and
die sinker named Benjamin Dudley, who had recently emigrated from
England. Bradford assured Morris that Dudley was capable of
assaying metal and rolling it into strips of desired thickness. He
was also able to construct a screw press and other necessary
machinery for the formation of the mint. Morris enthusiastically
hired Dudley to supervise the establishment of a mint and to make
dies and coins for the new coinage system, which was submitted to
Congress on January 15, 1782. Dudley arrived in Philadelphia on
October 23, 1781, and began the work of implementing the coinage
plan before Congress approved it.

According to Walter Breen, Morris brought with him several workmen
whose families were associated with the mint for generations, John
Jacob Eckfeldt and Abraham Dubois. Dudley found several prospective
sites for a mint and hired a blacksmith to make the rollers and
other machinery. Final approval from Congress was not forthcoming,
however, and expenditures were only approved piecemeal; progress
was limited. The papers of Robert Morris record many minute details
of the work done, including payments to Eckfeldt and an engraver
named David Tew for forging and sinking two pairs of dies in April
1783.

In his diary entry for April 2, 1783, Robert Morris noted, "I sent
for Mr. Dudley who delivered me a Piece of Silver Coin being the
first that has been struck as an American Coin." The denomination
of the coin was not mentioned, but it has always been assumed that
the coin was the largest silver denomination, the mark. The dies
for the mark were produced from device punches in the usual manner
of the time. A few weeks later, on April 16, Morris wrote the
following entry in his diary, "Sent for Mr. Dudley and urged him to
produce the Coins to lay before Congress to establish a Mint."
Apparently, Morris was feeling some time pressure at this point,
probably because there were competing offers from private firms to
provide coinage for the government on a contract basis. Dudley must
have felt there was no time to make punches for the smaller
denominations, as the dies for the quint and bit were cut by
hand.

Seven examples of the Nova Constellatio patterns survive today, one
mark, one Type One quint, one Type Two quint, three 100-unit cents,
or bits, one of which has a plain edge, and a single copper five.
No specimens of the proposed gold 10,000-unit piece or the copper
eight have ever been found, and it seems unlikely that any were
ever struck. Of the seven surviving coins, six of them exhibit the
same devices:

Obverse: The All-Seeing Eye in a glory of rays
at the center with 13 stars and NOVA CONSTELLATIO around.Reverse: U.S (no stop after S) and denomination enclosed by
an olive wreath at the center with LIBERTAS JUSTITIA and the date
1783 around.Edge: Twin olive leaf design, except for the copper five and
one of the bits, which have plain edges.

The Type Two quint features the same reverse as the Type One, but
the obverse is unique with the all-seeing eye encircled by 13 stars
and no inscription..

On April 22, 1783, Morris recorded the following in his diary, "Mr.
Dudley sent several Pieces of Money as Patterns of the intended
American Coins." This would presumably be the denominational set of
four coins, all with the same devices, although no definitive
documentation has come to light. Morris sent the coins to Elias
Boudinot, president of the Congress, the next day.

Unfortunately, the idea of a national mint was just a little bit
ahead of its time in 1783. Neither a suitable mint building nor a
reliable source of silver could be located at the time, and many
competing proposals for contractual private coinage seemed more
practical and cost-effective than pursuing a national mint. By the
end of 1783, the mint project ground to a halt, and the idea was
only finally realized in 1792, under the auspices of the new
Constitutional government. Benjamin Dudley was paid for his work in
January 1784 and went on to do much of the work on the later New
Jersey copper coinage.

The Coins in the 19th Century
Robert Morris sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson on May 1, 1784,
including an undocumented number of Nova Constellatio patterns.
Jefferson was preparing for a four-and-a-half-year assignment
abroad (he was U.S. minister to France from 1785 to 1789) and
hurriedly noted in his account book on May 11, "Left with C.
Thomson as specimen of coins 1.8D." Charles Thomson was the
secretary of the Continental Congress, and his name figures
prominently in the history of the coins. Jefferson's cryptic note
is thought to mean that he left 1.8 dollars or 1,800 units of Nova
Constellatio patterns with Thomson -- probably the mark, the Type
One quint, and the three bits. These coins vanished from the stage
for more than 50 years, but they would return in spectacular
fashion later. Morris apparently did not forward the Type Two
quint, and it followed a much different path from the other coins
in its future history.

The next mention of the Nova Constellatio patterns was not until
1859, when Montroville W. Dickeson published his American
Numismatical Manual. Dickeson, possibly in conjunction with
Joseph Mickley, came into contact with a man who had acquired both
the mark and the Type One quint from a descendant of Charles
Thomson. Dickeson did not get the details exactly right, but he did
convey the central fact that the coins were found in an old desk
after Thomson's death by his nephew. Joseph Mickley had several
soft-metal casts made of the coins, and an example of each replica
was offered in lots 2338 and 2339 of his collection, which he sold
through W. Elliot Woodward in October 1867.

Captain John W. Haseltine became active in numismatics in the late
1860s and, after reading Dickeson's work, the story of the Nova
Constellatio patterns seems to have had a special interest for him.
According to Breen, Haseltine conducted an extensive search for the
coins, contacting every descendant of Charles Thomson that he could
locate. His efforts were rewarded when he located a Mr. Rathmel
Wilson, of Wilmington, Delaware, in May 1872. Haseltine secured an
example of both the mark and the Type One quint from Wilson, which
he offered in lots 345 and 346 of his December 18, 1872, auction.
In addition to the physical description of the coins, Haseltine
offered the following discussion (see Figure 1):

"The two preceding pieces are, without doubt, the most
interesting of the Confederation series, being the first known
designs for a dollar and half dollar. They were found about thirty
years ago, in a desk formerly the property of the Hon. Charles
Thomson, Secretary of the first United States Congress. They are in
remarkably fine condition, having a beautiful proof surface, and
are as sharp as when they were struck. They will be sold together,
and are limited to five hundred dollars for the pair.

"The following is a copy of a letter from Mr. Rathmel Wilson, the
original of which will be sold with the pieces:

'John W. Haseltine, Esq.
PHILADELPHIA, May 28, 1872

'Dear Sir:

'The history of the two coins which you obtained from me, viz.:
Nova Constellatio, 1783, U.S. 1000, and Nova Constellatio, 1783,
U.S. 500, is as follows:

'They were the property of the Hon. Charles Thomson, Secretary of
the first Congress. At his death his property was left by will to
his nephew, John Thomson, of Newark, State of Delaware. These two
coins were found in the desk of the said deceased, Charles Thomson,
and preserved by his nephew during his life; at his death they came
into the possession of his son, Samuel E. Thomson, of Newark,
Delaware, from whom I received them. So you will perceive that
their genuineness cannot be questioned, as they were never out of
the possession of the Thomson family until I received them.

'Yours, respectfully,

'Rathmel Wilson' "

The coins sold to Henry S. Adams of Massachusetts, for $540. Soon
after, Sylvester Sage Crosby, who wrote the standard reference on
Colonial coins in 1875, purchased them from Adams. Crosby was able
to reunite these pieces with the Type Two quint, which had traveled
a different path since being coined by Benjamin Dudley.

The Type Two quint was not forwarded to Thomas Jefferson and
Charles Thomson with the other coins and did not surface until
October 1870, when New York City coin dealer William P. Brown
published a description of the coin in The Curiosity
Cabinet, volume 1, number 2. The article was reprinted in
Mason's Coin and Stamp Collector's Magazine in November (see
Figure 2). Brown revealed that the quint came from a young coin
collector in New York City, who had inherited it from his
grandfather as a family relic. Brown mentioned the account of the
patterns in Dickeson and the cast pieces in the Mickley sale, but
noted that the Type Two featured a different design and gave his
fanciful idea of its history. Sylvester Crosby purchased the coin
from Brown and described it, along with the Type One quint and the
mark, in his 1875 masterpiece Early Coins of America, on
pages 307-312.

The millionaire Boston bean magnate and coin collector, Lorin G.
Parmelee, acquired all three of Crosby's coins and topped off this
accomplishment by purchasing a specimen of the long-missing
100-unit silver coins, which surfaced in Scotland sometime around
1885. Curiously, all three of the 100-unit coins, or bits, surfaced
in the United Kingdom, the last not being recovered until Richard
Picker's specimen turned up in a London pawn shop in the 1980s.

Celebrity in the 20th Century
The four coins from Parmelee's collection, including the Type Two
quint, stayed together for most of the next century, passing
through the hands of H.P. Smith, the Chapman brothers, George
Earle, and Col. James Ellsworth before being purchased by Wayte
Raymond and John Work Garrett in 1923. Garrett retained all four
coins in his famous collection until his death in 1942, when the
collection was bequeathed to Johns Hopkins University.

Thanks to the work of numismatic scholars like John Ford and Walter
Breen, much was learned about the Nova Constellatio patterns in the
20th century and, despite being off the market for most of this
period, the pieces were universally recognized for their historic
importance and rarity. When Johns Hopkins sold the Garrett
Collection in a series of four auction sales cataloged by Bowers
and Ruddy from 1979-1981, it was one of the greatest events in
numismatic history, and the Nova Constellatio patterns were among
the biggest stars of the event, along with two Brasher doubloons
and an 1804 dollar. John Ford succeeded in purchasing the mark, the
Type One quint, and the bit for around $450,000, a staggering
amount at the time, but the Type Two quint escaped him and found a
long-term home in the collection of prominent numismatist Walter
Perschke, where it has resided to the present day. Perschke has
generously exhibited the coin at numismatic events over the years,
including a showing at the 2011 ANA Convention, when John Ford's
coins were on display at another table. Despite several attractive
offers, Walter never parted with the Type Two quint until now.

Historical and Economic Significance of the Patterns
One thing that should never be forgotten when studying the quint
and the other Nova Constellatio patterns is how very "American"
they are. The period from 1781-1783, when Robert Morris and
Benjamin Dudley struggled to build a national mint and strike these
coins coincides with the climactic period of the American
Revolution, and the coins' story is inextricably linked to those
events. Dudley arrived in Philadelphia to begin his work on the
mint only four days after Washington won his decisive victory at
Yorktown. Dudley had narrowly escaped from England a few months
before, as a strict policy was in force there prohibiting the
emigration of skilled craftsmen.

Gouverneur Morris submitted his innovative plan for the new
monetary system in early 1782, by which time the first peace
negotiations were being considered. The quint represents the basis
of a new monetary system, not only in America, but also in the
world. Morris sent his "patterns" to the central government to
begin the process of instituting an entirely new coinage and
monetary system. His design was not ultimately adopted but, more
importantly, the decimal system that he advocated was -- a new
system for the New World. Morris was making a statement to the
world that things were different in this new country called
America.

It is one of the turning points in American history that we adopted
an abstruse decimal system of money and coinage that had few
precedents (Peter the Great of Russia instituted a system of 100
kopecks to the ruble beginning in the early 1700s). The quint was
the forerunner for the decimal system of American dollars and all
subsequent American coinage. America was making a declaration to
the world that it was taking its place among sovereign nations and
minting its own coinage in a decimal system that was uniquely
American.

The minting of the quint was a milestone and turning point from
which there was no return. It became the basis of a new currency
which would evolve into the use of the dollar in the New World.
America could have easily adopted the system of the French, our
allies, or the system of the British to help heal the wounds of the
war and appease remaining loyalists. The wisdom of the Founding
Fathers and the impact on our economic system of a decimal monetary
system is ultimately more important than the specific design of
that coinage.

Most of the rest of the world would follow suit with a
decimal-based monetary system, if only centuries later. The quint
and the other Nova Constellatio patterns remain as tangible
reminders of the most important period in the history of our
country.

The Present Coin
The coin offered here is a delightful example of 18th century
coinage. The prooflike surfaces show only minor signs of contact.
The moderately reflective surfaces are blanketed in attractive
shades of lavender and golden-tan toning that adds considerably to
the strong visual appeal. The design elements are sharply defined
throughout, and the devices retain almost all original design
detail, despite the slightest touch of wear on the high points. A
few stray surface marks are evident, none unduly distracting. Some
barely visible pinscratches above US were interpreted by Walter
Breen to read 2 Dec, but they are indecipherable to the present
cataloger. The reverse shows full dentilation around but the
obverse is slightly off-center, the dentils merging with the rim in
some areas. There is a planchet fissure from the dentils through I
of LIBERTAS and the wreath to U. A tiny surface flaw shows above
the stop before the date, giving it the appearance of a colon
rather than a period. Another, smaller planchet fissure runs from
this defect to the top of the 1 in the date. A short die scratch
connects the bottom of L and I in LIBERTAS. Few coins of the 18th
century were as well-made and fewer still have been so
well-preserved.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of this lot. Walter
Breen, an acknowledged expert on early proof coinage, believed this
coin was struck in proof format, one of the earliest U.S. proofs on
record and an attractive specimen of the coiner's art in any
context. The Nova Constellatio patterns were struck by personnel
hired by the U.S. government, acting on instructions from
Congressional representatives. The coins represent the prototypes
for the first system of American coinage ever conceived. They have
serious claims to being the first U.S. pattern coins although they
were struck under the authority of the Articles of Confederation,
before the Constitution was written. This Type Two quint is unique,
the ultimate in absolute rarity. It has been off the market for 34
years. Its combination of historic importance, high quality, and
absolute rarity can be matched by few issues in any category of
American numismatics. The discerning collector will heed the advice
of John Ford and acquire this coin at any cost.Ex: Benjamin Dudley and Robert Morris in 1783; unidentified New
York City collector as a family heirloom until 1870; coin dealer
William P. Brown; Sylvester Sage Crosby; Lorin G. Parmelee; Lorin
G. Parmelee Collection (New York Coin & Stamp, 6/1890), lot
582; Harlan Page Smith; S.H. & H. Chapman; George Earle, Jr.;
Henry Chapman; Col. James W. Ellsworth; Knoedler Galleries; Wayte
Raymond; John Work Garrett; Johns Hopkins University; Garrett
Collection, Part I (Bowers and Ruddy, 11/1979), lot 621; Walter
Perschke. (PCGS# 821)